Bonham is auctioning off Michael Schumacher's Benetton B193B (1993). The F1 racing car is said to be priced at at least £1.1million. The legendary vehicle will go under the hammer on June 24th.
Michael Schumacher's next Formula 1 racer is for sale. In March, the portal "duPont Registry" offered a Ferrari F300 for 4.9 million US dollars. On June 24, the Bonham auction house is auctioning off a Benetton B193 from the 1993 season. The price for the 29-year-old vehicle is between 1.1 and 1.6 million British pounds. Converted, the car is between 1.3 and 1.9 million euros.
The Benetton team mainly used the car with the chassis number B193B-04 for test drives. In the 1990s there were no testing restrictions like there are today. Michael Schumacher also drove the example to be auctioned in qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone. The 91-fold winner immediately put the car in third place on the grid. Only the vastly superior Williams-Renault of Alain Prost and Damon Hill qualified ahead of Kerpener.
On the day of the race, Schumacher's teammate Patrese sat in the number 04 chassis. The Italian finished third. The German returned to his ancestral #05 chassis and finished one place ahead of Patrese. During the course of the season, the car took part in four other races with Patrese at the wheel. The Benetton was powered by a 3.5-liter V8 Cosworth, which was weak on the chest in contrast to the V10 units from Renault.
Traction control in the B193B
In 1993, all kinds of technical driving aids were allowed in Formula 1. The Williams team had perfected this over several seasons. This made the cars powered by Renault almost unbeatable in 1992 and 1993. Nigel Mansell snatched the title 30 years ago, while Alain Prost triumphantly celebrated his fourth and last championship before retiring in 1993.
With the B193B, Benetton itself had a car for the first time that had many driving aids. From the Monaco GP, these included traction control, active wheel suspension and a semi-automatic gearbox. The predecessor B192 did not have these aids. The Benetton team hoped to get input on the various systems from Schumacher's teammate Patrese. After all, the six-time GP winner drove for Williams for six years and had gained a lot of experience with electronics.
Schumacher celebrates a win
Patrese had nothing to order compared to his young teammate. Although he finished fifth in the World Cup table, he was a whopping 32 points behind the Germans. Considering the old scoring system, where there were only ten points for the winner, that's a big difference.
Towards the end of the season, Schumacher celebrated success in his Benetton B193B. In the Portuguese Estoril, the German surprisingly won ahead of Alain Prost after only finishing sixth in qualifying. Prost won the world championship with second place.
After 1993, the FIA banned electronic driving aids in cars. The racing cars had become too fast for those responsible. In the 1994 season, Williams-Renault lost the big lead over Benetton. World championship favorite Ayrton Senna, who switched from McLaren to Williams, died after a bad start to the season in Imola. Schumacher, on the other hand, was crowned Formula 1 world champion for the first time after a tough season.
